Posted On 2013-07-23 In Francis - Initiatives and Gestures

Dear Young People, I know that many of you are on the way to Rio

mda. “Dear Young People, I know that many of you are already on your way to Rio. … May the Lord accompany you on your journey. Many of you, dear young people, have already arrived in Rio, and many of you are arriving. We will meet in three days’ time!” In his Tweets this week Pope Francis addressed the youth from every continent who were on pilgrimage in these days to Rio de Janeiro. They are days filled with hope, anticipation, and days of powerful gestures. On Saturday afternoon Pope Francis made a pilgrimage to St Mary Major to ask the Blessed Mother for her protection for the approaching apostolic journey to the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, and for all the youth of the whole world. Around 1,5 million young people are expected in Rio, of whom a good 350.000 come from other countries.

The Pope arrived a 4.45 p.m. local time in the Basilica. He entered the church through a side door next to the sacristy. At the time the church was full of visitors. He was received by Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, the Archpriest of the Basilica. He spent about half an hour in prayer before the icon “Salus Populi Romani” and afterwards left a bunch of flowers and lit a candle with the symbol of the World Youth Day.

Before Pope Francis left the church he greeted the visitors briefly and ask them to pray for his journey and for the success of the World Youth Day, “Brothers and Sisters, good afternoon! Thank you for being here, and I also thank the Cardinal. He is happy, because, as he said, this is the fourth time I have been here. I have come to pray to the Madonna before I travel to Brazil. I am going to Brazil to visit the youth, the young people from all over the world! In a certain sense the youth are our strength: the strength of the future, but also of the future itself. Come to our meeting in order to be close to the youth. It is a promise.” Yet, as Pope Francis reminded those present in his spontaneous address, society would lose a great deal if it concentrated exclusively on the youth. “Also the elderly are a value for the future. While the youth represent the future, the elderly represent the wisdom of the people. We must listen to young people who are looking forward, but also to the elderly, who mediate wisdom to us. I ask you most sincerely to pray for the World Youth Day. May the Madonna protect us all! Accompany this meeting with your prayers, with your trust in the Blessed Mother, and with your penance. Many thanks till we meet again on my fifth visit!”

Pope Francis asked Benedict to pray for the World Youth Day

The previous day, shortly before 4 p.m., Pope Francis met with his predecessor, Benedict XVI. After praying together, Francis asked the Pope Emeritus for his spiritual support for the journey to the World Youth Day that would start on Monday. This was announced by the Vatican after about half an hour’s meeting. Benedict XVI was asked to pray for Francis’ first foreign trip and for the youth from all over the world who were travelling to the meeting in Brazil. Francis presented a programme of the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro to Benedict, and invited him to follow the event via live broadcasts. The Pope Emeritus assured him that he would follow the journey and take it into his prayer intentions. Francis reported enthusiastically on the World Youth Days he had personally attended in Cologne, Sydney and Madrid.

Brazil is preparing…

The Brazilian postal services have given out a stamp to honour Pope Francis’ visit. It will be available from Tuesday after the Opening Holy Mass on the famous Copacabana beach. The stamp, which is designed in the green and yellow of the Brazilian national flag, shows the image of Pope Francis giving his blessing against the background of the Cristo Redentor statue and the Sugarloaf, Rio’s famous landmark. “WYD Rio 2113: Visit of Pope Francis to Brazil” is the text on the stamp.

United in service and making the Church present

After weeks of preparation the time had come also for Schoenstatt. Thousands of Rosaries were prayed in the Brazilian shrines and beyond, and given as gifts for the young people. The shrine in Rio is a place of catechesis; a “Pilgrim Shrine” made of wood, but exactly the same size as the stone shrine, has been set up in the middle of the city. The Pilgrim Mother is present at all the central places of the World Youth Day in over a hundred pictures. And on 18 July the Pilgrimage Cross and Icon of Mary were in the Rio de Janeiro shrine.

On 18 July the “Cor Unum” meeting of the girls and young women began in Atiabia; on 20 July in Niteroi near Rio de Janeiro there was the international meeting “Ignis” – Fire – of the young men, the climax of which was the Misiones that day on the Rio beach. “On behalf of the spiritual assistant of the Young Men in Brazil, and the young people in the central team of the international meeting of the young men before the World Youth Day in Rio, IGNIS, I am writing with great joy about Schoenstatt’s presence also at this World Youth Day, and also to ask for prayer and contributions to the capital of grace for IGNIS and the World Youth Day in the Original Shrine and everywhere else. We here feel very united with the Original Shrine and in the strength of the covenant we unite our weakness with the graces of the Blessed Mother for our project in the context of the World Youth Day. Many greetings from Rio de Janeiro.” Alfonso Wosny wrote those words to the team of schoenstatt.org, and added, “We are deeply united with, in service and in making the Church present.

Carmen Rogers from Santiago, Chile, reported, “My group and my Branch are invited to the World Youth Day in Rio from beyond every border, by accompanying each individual member of the 150 young men from Chile with your prayers. Our Deacon Claudio Martinez F. has given us a complete list. We have travelled in this way to every World Youth Day since the WYD in Germany …”

Maria Rita Vianna from Sao Paulo prayed countless Rosaries during Adoration in the shrine for the World Youth Day, and translated at least as many articles … and then quite unexpectedly received the gift of helping in Rio!

A pilgrimage of solidarity

About 43000 young people in Argentina set out for the World Youth Day with “their” Pope: the Cathedral of Buenos Aires – the Pope’s cathedral, as they say – was the point of departure on the pilgrimage for a few hundred of them. There was something for Pope Francis at the Holy Mass sending them out … “It was an impossibility for the young people in the slums of this city to find the 4000 Pesos for the journey. So, just when some of the parishes, which Cardinal Bergoglio visited so often, had decided to send their young people to Rio, they received the good news in what was at first a gentle awakening: May it happen that the Cardinal’s diocese isn’t there? And the young people from his parishes? The Archdiocese of Buenos Aires began the biggest sponsorship drive of its history in order to finance the journey of young people from the poorest families, and supplement those who were only able to pay something towards it. Tombolas, lotteries, and all sorts of initiatives were taken in order to collect Peso after Peso in the parishes. On Friday 400 young people travelled in seven buses from the Cathedral to Rio. With them went three statues of Our Lady of Lujan. One will be given to Pope Francis for Rome, and another will be taken by the pilgrims from Buenos Aires to a Favela.” (From a report in the newspaper La Nacion)

We are in – we are in Francis

Those who have often attended World Youth Days would know the tradition of taking along souvenirs to exchange with pilgrims from other countries. “Some young people have made little cork statues of ‘Our Lady of Lujan’, which they call the ‘little traveller'”, the above article reported. “Others have flags, cards, T-shirts and banderols with photos of the Pope in their luggage.” “You have no idea what it is like here; everyone wants a photo with the Argentinean flag,” said Leyla Mafud from Tucuman, who has already arrived in Rio. “People bring as many balloons and flags as they can carry for presents. We are in!”

Which flags are the Schoenstatters taking to their meeting with Francis? The flag of international Schoenstatt? It fits as a sign of the international character and the commitment to bringing about the “new city” that has to take on shape and form in the world … The flag of Jubilee 2014? It is also a suitable sign of the grace we expect, and the renewal in and through this Church in the process of a renewal in a new Pentecost that no one expected…

If we carry the flag of covenant solidarity, we will be in. In Francis.


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